Mysteriouser and mysteriouser . . .
In the Saturday mailbox . . .
Sometimes the student is the student, and the teacher is the teacher. Sometimes the teacher is the student. And sometimes the student is the teacher. Based on respect and honesty they bow to each other.
On today's date in 1939, Georgia, Connecticut and Massachusetts finally ratified the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government.
Today is the 91st anniversary of John Updike's birth. The prolific novelist/essayist/poet was born on this date in 1932 Reading, Pennsylvania. He was one of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once. Updike died in January of 2009.
Fifty-five years ago today, Robert Kennedy spoke at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas, on March 18, 1968. Part of his speech deserves to go and remain viral:
Too much and too long, we have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts [the automatic weapons and funeral parlors serving victims of mass shootings] and the television programs that glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.
Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
Three months after Kennedy's Kansas appearance, On June 5, 1968, he was assassinated.
Today is also the birthday of the poet who reportedly said “beauty has only one perfect expression, Poetry. All the rest is a lie." The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, born on this date 1842 Paris.
If you think you are not in touch with the Great Mystery, look again. It is still just as mysterious as it was when you were a child.